Hi, I'd like to point out I have no objection to "feeding families" : we also happily use Maple (another commercial product by Waterloo) for instance.
The problem is that Mathworks - in contrast with Waterloo - charges excessive prices that are in no relation to the quality of their product, simply because they have more or less a monopoly in their field. My idea is that we shouldn't contribute to make a greedy monopolist even richer : feeding your family doesn't necessarily mean that every child needs 2 Rolls Royces and a private jet ;-) -- Bye, Kees On Thursday 07 April 2005 16:14, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > Kees Lemmens wrote: > >Hi, > > > >In our Math department we are rapidly replacing Matlab (commercial and > >VERY expensive !) with Octave (GNU Open Source). I wonder: wouldn't it > > be a better to make a connection to an Open Source project like > > Octave instead ? > > As someone else in this thread pointed out, the I/O capabilities in > FlightGear are open for anyone to use. The work I did was simply to > make the binary structure a bit more predictable in a cross platform > environment. Does Octave have facilities for modeling flight dynamics > or control systems? If so, I'm happy to work with an Octave developer > to iron out any interfacing issues. > > >Matlab is squeezing lot's of money out of people. They try to connect > > just about anything to their software so that users won't even > > consider using anything else (apart for those who pay the bills ;-). > > > >But I don't think that FlightGear - as an outstanding Open Source > > project - should co-operate in making this nasty company even more > > powerful ... > > > >Even Airbus seemed to be fed up with the Matlab tax-collectors and > > started developing their own Open Source Matlab-clone already some > > years ago : SciLab. > > > >BTW: this reminds me of another nasty company ;-) > > People are going to think what they are going to think about business, > politics, etc. And this forum is the wrong place to discuss those > issues. I have never looked at Octave, myself, but if it's a > legitimate contender, and Octave users want to interface with > FlightGear for some reason, then I'm happy to participate and make that > as seamless and easy as possible. > > For what it's worth, many very big name companies use matlab/simulink. > If these companies also start using FlightGear in conjunction with > matlab as a visualization tool, then that increases FlightGear's > "market share" in a very high profile segment of the market. That's > good in and of itself, but if some of these companies (or developers > that work at these companies) make changes/additions to FlightGear, > that's a direct benefit to us. All of these forces feed each other, > and hopefully build an upward spiral to make FlightGear better and > better. > > Personally, I think open-source is a great and wonderful way to develop > software ... it's not perfect, but it has many advantages. There's no > question that this is the best approach for FlightGear. But at the > same time, people need to feed thier families ... those of us who are > cursed to live out their lives as software geeks (with few other > marketable skills) shouldn't be prevented from making a living from our > primary skill. I believe the world needs a combination of proprietary > and open-source software. Both approaches have their own unique > strengths and weaknesses. I think the "optimal" way to develop > software is to find good ways to marry the two approaches. But like > any marriage, one of the hardest things is to figure out the exact > details (balance of power, division of labor, etc.) between the > spouses. Some matches work better than others, but a good match is far > more powerful and capable than individuals working in isolation. > > Regards, > > Curt. _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-users 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
